Former New York Gov. George Pataki touched down in Ukraine on Thursday to give out thousands of trauma kits and help provide medical training for civilians amid a recent spate of deadly Russian drone attacks in the region.
Pataki’s arrival in western Ukraine — his fifth trip to the region since the war broke out — came as its officials said the latest pre-dawn Russian missile attack on Kyiv early Thursday killed at least three people, including a 9-year-old girl and her mother.
“Right now with the civilians suffering under the drone attacks, there’s a desperate need for trauma kits that people can use if there’s someone who was damaged by debris from a building, or a rocket or a drone,” Pataki, 77, told The Post from the city of Lviv.
“We’re bringing in the kits and training civilians on how to stop bleeding, treat people and get through the initial trauma so they can be transported to more comprehensive health care.”
The Republican, who is heading to Kyiv on Friday, said the plan was to equip locals with the necessary medical training “so that when one of these tragic incidents happens, there’ll be someone there with a trauma kit and the training to save that person’s life.”
“Everybody is susceptible to the drones and rockets and cruise missiles that the Russians have used to try to terrorize and intimidate the rest of the country,” he said.
New York’s ex-chief executive, who set up a Ukrainian Relief Fund through his George Pataki Leadership Center, said the trauma training was being led in part by a handful of US Army veterans who had experienced war zones firsthand.
The first aid kits were provided by the Big Apple-based nonprofit, Task Force Antal.
In addition to the mom and child, the latest drone attack early Thursday killed a 33-year-old woman who was struck by falling missile fragments while trying to get into an air raid shelter.
Ukrainian air defenses shot down all 10 cruise and ballistic missiles launched by the Kremlin’s forces, officials said.
Russia has kept up a steady barrage on the Ukrainian capital and other parts of the country in recent weeks. Kyiv was the target of drone and missile attacks on 17 days last month alone.
But in spite of the rising drone and missile threats, Pataki said the courage and resilience of the Ukrainian people was “incredible.”
“You see the suffering of the families and the people who are just living in this terrible tragedy and it makes you feel you have to do everything to try and help,” he said.
“This is a true tragedy. It’s an ongoing tragedy and the quicker we can do whatever we can to get it over with, the better it will be for everyone.”
Pataki has been back and forth to Ukraine a handful of times since the war broke out in February 2022. On his last trip in December, Pataki came armed with 15 large industrial-size heating units that had the capacity to serve up to 10 families each.
Despite the Biden administration committing more than $37.6 billion in combined aid packages to Ukraine since the start of the invasion, Pataki said he hadn’t yet seen that funding trickle down to the civilians.
“There are signs that some of the humanitarian aid has largely gotten through to the [Ukrainian] government, but what we don’t see is humanitarian aid spread across the country to the civilians who are facing this new risk from the drone attacks,” he said.
“We haven’t seen the magnitude that you would think would be here on the billions that have been promised, but at least there are some signs some of it’s getting through.”
With Post wires
